1 Corinthians 9:1

I’m a free man, aren’t I?

As Christians, we are free.

In a sense, we are at liberty to do whatever we want under grace, as long as it is with a clear conscience before our Lord.

So I feel just fine and totally guilt-free to drink a beer, go to a movie, have long hair, wear earrings, mow the lawn in my underwear, and play with action figures.

But perhaps there’s another way to frame it. A way that might be more enlightening.

As Christians, we are free to relinquish our rights to anything we choose, to limit ourselves however we see fit or are called to do, for the sake of others, for the sake of the gospel.

Because I have been set free, it is no big deal to abstain from anything so as to not be any sort of hindrance to any one receiving, or growing in, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because there’s no bigger deal than that.

1 Corinthians 8:1

Knowledge puffs you up, but love builds you up!

“Some Christians grow, and others just swell,” a famous preacher use to say.

Our knowing Christ is not an amassing of information about Him. Rather it is a getting to know Him in order to, by His Spirit, become more like Him, indeed to become Him—Theosis!

Knowledge and love must grow together if we are to grow in Christ.

Knowledge without love becomes brutality.

Love without knowledge becomes so mushy that there is nothing solid to stand on or hold you up in times of difficulty.

Are you more loving than you were a year ago?

Another test might be to ask yourself, “Am I more understanding of people or less understanding than I was a year ago?”

I believe that when we truly grow in the knowledge of Christ, we become more compassionate, more understanding, because we see ourselves more clearly—on equal footing with all others before Christ.

The more knowledge we gain, the more superiority we tend to feel, or at a minimum we find that we have to fight harder against feelings of superiority creeping in–unless it is sincere growth in Christ, always with the view toward helping others to freedom.

Another measure is to ask, “Am I purer in heart than I was last year?”

Growth in Christ, becoming more like Him, is to grow in purity of heart. More and more you will see people through a loving lens, not seeing their flaws first, desirous of their good, even at the expense of your own perceived rights. And it will not feel like a herculean effort. This attitude will become more and more natural to you as you take on the Spirit of Jesus and as He freely flows through you.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

This is what I mean, my brothers and sisters. The present situation won’t last long; for the moment, let those who have wives live as though they weren’t married, 

those who weep as though they were not weeping, those who celebrate as though they were not celebrating, those who buy as though they had no possessions, 

those who use the world as though they were not making use of it. The pattern of this world, you see, is passing away.

These are rather confusing verses, but Paul’s basic point here is to not get caught up in that which is passing away. He doesn’t mean the transiency of creation, but the fact that the social and business institutions as we know them, for example, have no permanence.

Do not let things that are good in and of themselves like marriage, work, school, and commerce distract you from your devotion to the Lord. May nothing, even our responsibilities, rob us of our focus on God. [Isaiah 26:3]

A few quotes from C.K. Barrett which I have found illuminating of this text:

He who can thus live, in service to God and in detachment from the world, is a free man, though his freedom is not that of the Stoic, but of the slave of Christ.

The point is that neither laughter nor tears is the last word; a man should never allow himself to be lost in either.

Christians may use the world but must not be absorbed in it…

1 Corinthians 6:12

‘Everything is lawful for me’ – but not everything is helpful! ‘Everything is lawful for me’ – but I’m not going to let anything give me orders!

~New Testament For Everyone

It has been said that freedom is not the absence of rules, but the presence of discipline.

Being able to do whatever we want can quickly take control of us, and turn us into slaves to our desires and whims.

I think a good test might be to see if you can go 30 days without something. If the mere thought of that is upsetting, then it’s a good bet that you’re enslaved at least to some degree to that thing.

So I ask myself, “Can I go 30 days without a drink without freaking out?” “Could I go 30 days without buying a book without breaking out in hives?”

Being able to go an extended amount of time without something may prove to yourself that you don’t really need it as much as you thought you did, or that you were a little too attached to something that is not God.

What do you need to take a break from? What is perhaps a little too important to you?

1 Corinthians 5:6-13

Why should I worry about judging people outside? It’s the people inside you should judge, isn’t it?

God judges the people outside.

Judging people outside the church is kinda like getting upset with someone who gets lost in the woods with no compass.

God will judge accordingly those who do not trust in Him. That is not something we need stress about.

But what we do need to take responsibility for are our plentiful in-house problems. It is our task to discipline those “inside the fold”—those who claim to be followers of Jesus in our church community.

Like iron sharpening iron, we hold each other to what we say we believe in. And we do this for the good of each other. If I start going off the rails, I sure hope one or more of you will do everything to stop me!

In Ripple Effect meetings we always made it clear that we are here to encourage one another AND call each other out when needed.

1 Corinthians 4:20

The Kingdom of God, you see, isn’t about talk—it’s about power.

~New Testament For Everyone

For the kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.

~New Living Translation

How have I never encountered this verse before?

What an amazingly pithy statement.

We could say that the kingdom of God is the range of God’s effective will—where what God wants done is done. It is not where what God wants done is merely talked about. Rather it is enacted through God’s power.

I was at this church planting forum a month or so ago, and at lunch one of the guys I met asked our group, “So what is God doing here in your city?”

What a great question. He didn’t just want to talk about the kingdom, pointlessly philosophizing, he wanted to hear what was actually happening via God’s power.

To be candid, I’ve grown quite bored with philosophizing about the kingdom, and simply want to live it, and hear stories about what God is doing. That’s what inspires people, way more than talking about theories or principles or what we could or should be doing.

Lots of talk quickly becomes a yawn-fest.

God’s power is….powerful.

Like the blind man who was healed by Jesus giving his testimony: “Look, I don’t know how He did it. All I know is I was blind, He put some mud on my eyes, told me to go wash in the pool of Siloam, I washed, and now I can see!” (John 9)

1 Corinthians 3:6-7

I planted and Apollos watered, but it was God who gave the growth.

It follows that the person who plants isn’t anything special, and the person who waters isn’t anything special; what matters is God who gives the growth.

This takes some pressure off, doesn’t it?

God does all the heavy lifting in human hearts. We get the easy parts: planting, watering, praying for growth.

BOOM.

Got it.

We all have our little part to play, our unique gifting and talents. And we’re all on the same level beneath God, so it is absolutely absurd to play one person’s part off against another. Nobody is more important or needed than any other. We all have our role to play and none of it is the creation or growth of someone’s faith—that’s God’s work, thank God–so let’s celebrate each other and the parts we each play, am I right!

The only significance of planter and waterer is that God accepts their labor and works through them (verse 9); they have no independent importance.

~C.K. Barrett

1 Corinthians 2:13-14

We don’t use words we’ve been taught by human wisdom, but words we’ve been taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people.

Someone living at the merely human level doesn’t accept the things of God’s spirit. They are foolishness to such people, you see, and they can’t understand them because they need to be discerned spiritually.

~New Testament For Everyone

You need God’s spirit in order to accept or understand anything that comes directly from God.

God’s wisdom does not fit into the worldly mind.

A humble reliance on the Holy Spirit is required to comprehend and appropriate the Word of God.

For me this reliance looks like humble, preconceived notion-free listening, in the type of humility that sits in reverential awe before the King of kings, the Maker of the universe. Yet this humble listening is confident in the love of God, and God’s desire to communicate with us—on the level of spirit, as God is spirit. So it has the quality of what we could call a holy expectancy with it.

I believe God made us able to know Him and commune with Him, but on His terms, and through His Spirit, and only as She allows and sees fit.

How often in Scripture do we see how much God loves, rewards, and reveals to the humble.

And how little is given to the arrogant.

Oh may we never profess to know even one little thing about God if it did not come to us through the Holy Spirit…and in humble reliance upon God’s spirit.

How do you open yourself to God’s spirit?

What do you receive when you do?

What do you hear?

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Each one of you is saying, “I’m with Paul!”, “I’m with Apollos!”, “I’m with Cephas!”, “I’m with the Messiah!”

Well! Has the Messiah been cut up into pieces?

David Garland, a professor of Christian Scriptures, says “This letter should be read against the background of a mercantile society imbued with Roman cultural values that fed a ruthless preoccupation with attaining public status, promoting one’s own honor, and securing power.”

This secular influence had infiltrated the church in Corinth, leading to some discordant factions which grew out of the rivalry of leading figures, who may have hosted different house churches.

Paul writes to set them straight—that we don’t just follow the flavor of Christ we tend to like or most identify with. And we don’t belong to teachers; teachers belong to us. And we all belong to Christ, who is not one alternative leader among many, but the only possible foundation of the whole church.

We must always check ourselves against a party mentality. We do not belong to parties, we belong to Christ. Different teachers can shed light on different aspects of Christ, but we have to be careful not to overly identify with a particular teacher or preacher, but to always make sure we identify with Christ Himself. This, obviously, goes for denominations as well. And then we need to watch that by opposing all denominations, we don’t become a separate denomination.

Here’s four warnings Paul will give against the party spirit over the next few chapters of this letter:

1. Factions give to particular apostles a place which only Christ should occupy.
2. Many are looking upon the apostles as teachers of philosophy rather than preachers of the word of the cross.
3. The true wisdom which is bestowed by the Spirit of God is not to be had by those of a factious spirit.
4. These divisions represent the apostles as rivals rather than as fellow workers under Christ.

*These four warnings taken from The Interpreter’s Bible.